A man has been arrested after a French nun was shoved to the floor and kicked in an apparently unprovoked attack in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem earlier this week.
Footage of the incident shows the woman in a grey habit being shoved from behind, causing her to hit her head on a stone block. Her attacker, who is wearing a Jewish kippah and tzitzit – ritual tassels - initially walks away but then returns to kick her as she lies on the ground.
The assault comes amid a recent rise in harassment of Christian clergy and pilgrims by Jewish extremists in Jerusalem's Old City.
The 36-year-old suspect was arrested on suspicion of racially motivated assault, but no charges have yet been brought.
Father Olivier Poquillon, director of the French Biblical and Archaeological School, where the nun is a researcher, wrote on X that she was the "victim of an unprovoked assault" in the late afternoon on Tuesday.
